A brief history of canned food

A In 1795, the French government had a problem: they faced the fact that it is not easy to win battles abroad when your soldiers are hungry and malnourished. That year they established a 12,000-franc prize for whoever could find a way to preserve food – from milk and meat to fruits and vegetables. French chef Nicolas Appert took more than a decade to develop a process that involved cooking food in glass jars and then using seals made of cork to make them airtight. In 1810, he published a book whose title translates as “The art of preserving all animal and vegetable substances for several years”, and collected his prize money. Appert’s achievement didn’t escape the notice of British merchant and inventor Peter Durand, who applied for a British patent later that year. Durand used techniques similar to Appert’s, although he adapted the model to include the use of tin vessels as well as glass jars.

B Following these discoveries, canned food was initially produced for soldiers and explorers. But even after people became aware of the existence of bacteria in the late 19th century, canning companies couldn’t work out exactly why some of their turned bad. And even into the 20th century, newspapers were full of accounts not only of food poisoning but also of cases of the fatal disease botulism resulting from people eating canned food. For that reason, many continued to look upon canned food with suspicion and fear.

C The US food manufacturer, The Heinz Company, realized bad cans were bad for business. From the 1890s to 1920s, the company insisted on weekly manicures for its canning-factory workers to ensure that any bacteria beneath employees’ fingernails stayed out of the food. Heinz employees were required to shower and change their clothing regularly. In an era when food-factory hygiene was not universally adopted, what might have been considered a nuisance by workers was at least good for consumers.

Some canning companies killed bacteria with chemical additives such as sodiumbenzoate, which is still used today in canned food, and formaldehydes, whichare now known to cause cancer. Some of the larger canning companies, such asHeinz, Libby, and Campbell’s, installed expensive steam-retort technologydeveloped in the 1870s. Steam retorts worked like steam engines, using pressure to raise canning temperatures high enough to make food safe. Yet some batches of cans, even when made with this advanced technique, would explode aftermonths on the shelf, while the contents of other cans might mysteriously sour.Smaller canning manufacturers relied on the open kettle method* and they had even less consistent results.

US canning companies eventually banded together to discover the scientificprinciples affecting the canning process. In 1913, they launched the Research Laboratory of the National Canners Association in order to look into the elusive bacteriology responsible for all manner of spoiled canned food. The research done by the laboratory in the decades that followed helped resolve the problem of spoiled food and led to improved flavor, color, nutritional value,and texture.

Before this time, canning companies had discovered through trial and error thatthe best way to avoid bad cans was to cook food at high temperatures for longperiods, an approach that sacrificed flavor. ‘Food safety and palatability were often at cross-purposes, remarks food historian Gabriella Petrick. For stringbeans, for instance, long cooking times in hot water leach out the green color,creating an unattractive grayish-toned bean. The addition of salt was one technique employed in the early 20th century to prevent this happening, thereby maintaining the visual appeal of the product and restoring a certain amount of taste.

One of the major canning innovations of the 20th century was the development of aseptic processing. This technique, which involves sterilizing the containerseparately from the food, was invented in Switzerland in the 1960s forprocessing milk, but is now used widely for canned tomatoes and many juices.Small volumes of food are heated to a precise temperature and for a precisetime in order to avoid overcooking and preserve color and nutrients, explainsfood scientist Philip Nelson, who won the 2007 World Food Prize in recognitionof his research on making aseptic processing workable on a large industrialscale.

Today, despite all the modern alternatives, Appert’s technology still reigns supreme for long-term storage. More than two centuries on, the simple can is still the best solution for the safe and effective preservation of a wide range of foodstuffs worldwide.

Questions 1-8

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Solving problems in the preservation of food

Early inventions

1795

·French government needs supply of preserved food to feed the nation`s 1………………..

early 1810

·Appert preserves food in glass jars-using 2………………..

·Durand adapts Appert`s process for containers made of 3………………..

Dealing with problems of canned food going bad